


Helping

by deedeeinfj



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tonks tries to comfort Remus</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helping

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on Livejournal, 2003.

Tonks stared over the top of her mug at Remus, entirely ignoring whatever Kingsley and Hestia were discussing. She watched the way his eyes moved slowly and absently between various spots on the table, on the walls, on the floor, never caring what they rested on, as long as it was something to look at. He must have been listening because occasionally he would comment or ask a question. Tonks was the one not listening. And when he stood wordlessly and left the room, she stared at the back of his chair until Hestia laid a hand on her arm and said, "Tonks?"

She lowered the mug and watched as tea pooled around the base, leaving a perfect circle when she lifted the mug again. She set it down, made another ring of dark tea on scratched, warped wood. Lifted it again, set it down to stay.

"Tonks?" said Kingsley this time.

"I don't feel well," she said. She stood and reached to tuck her hair behind her ear, then realized that it was short and spiky today. Instead she pressed one hand to the back of her neck, turning it this way and that. There was an exchange of concerned comments and disinterested thanks, then Tonks left to find Remus.

Why his grief fascinated her, why she wanted to follow him, she didn't know. Romance wasn't a factor; even if he could have been interested in her, she wasn't attracted to him. All she was aware of was a desire to help him, because that was what she did. She helped people. Made an awful bungle of things more likely than not, but she tried. At the moment, she had no idea what she intended to do to help Remus, but she refused to sit another day, watching grief unexpressed and unspoken. It made her want to shake his shoulders and yell, "Hello in there?"

She found him in Buckbeak's room and entered through the door he'd left open. He was leaning back against the wall and watching the hippogriff, and Tonks sat cross-legged beside him.

"The meeting's over?"

"No," she said. "I came to find you."

Remus turned to her and smiled. And she admitted to herself that here, like this, he could be attractive. She hoped her blush didn't look as obvious as it felt.

"Green today."

Tonks gave a small laugh and once again reached up to touch her hair. "Yeah." She returned his smile, then uncrossed her legs and lifted her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. "You like it in here, Remus?"

"Sometimes," he replied. "Sometimes I can almost see him over there, feeding Buckbeak and whistling."

Tonks said nothing. She wondered how much of a comfort it would be to him to see Sirius' face. And she wondered if she could do it. With a concentrated squint of her eyes, she turned them blue. She always knew what shade they were because somehow she could feel the colors. It was something no one could understand but people like her. And for this pale, Sirius blue, she felt air and light acutely, as if her eyes were now more open to the elements. Now for the hair. She felt it creeping down her neck, now falling around her face, and with another blink, it peppered over her jaw.

"Sirius," she thought. She saw him in her mind, and she squinted her pale, empty-feeling eyes. Brows, nose, grinning mouth.

"Tonks," came the quiet voice beside her. "What are you doing?"

"Do you want to see his face, Remus?" she asked, still not lifting her head. Too bad there was nothing she could do about the voice.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him lift his hand, and she realized that he was going to touch her hair. He paused just before he did, though, and then she felt his fingers on her back.

"No," he said softly. "Tonks... change back, sweetheart."

They had always called her that, when she visited them in the days before Azkaban, when she was a small girl in pigtails. Now to hear it again, affectionately and gently from Remus... She blinked because her eyes stung, and blinked a few more times to get back the green hair and hazel eyes. The hand on her back pulled her closer, and she allowed herself to sink against Remus, surprised at how soft his patched-up shirt was.

"Whatever happened to that flobberworm farm he gave you?" Remus asked. He touched her hair now, stroking it with his fingers. Those spikes needed to be flattened anyway.

Tonks closed her eyes and relaxed against him. "I dropped it and broke it." His chest shook a little as he laughed, and Tonks smiled. Flobberworms everywhere. Her mother hadn't been happy. "I'm sorry, Remus," she murmured. Sorry for what he had lost, sorry because she had been presumptuous and stupid, sorry because once again, her clumsiness prevented her from helping. "I was trying to help."

A moment's silence, then: "You did help. You're helping right now." He held her closer, and she wrapped one arm around his chest. Yes, she thought, this was much easier than trying to bring Sirius back from the dead. This was something she could do.


End file.
